PHIL 101 Lecture : Aristotle - Virtue and Happiness
Like archers, we should have a mark to aim at, so we can more easily get to that aim
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What is the good we are seeking?
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Not all ends are complete ends however the chief good is evidently a complete end
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If there is only one complete end then this is what we will be seeking for
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Happiness: a complete end since we choose happiness for itself not to achieve something else
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Complete: always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else
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If there is more than one, the most complete of these will be what we are seeking.
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If there is an end for all we do, this will be the good achievable by action
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We must exclude the life of nutrition and growth as this is common in all organisms
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We are seeking what is good peculiar to mankind
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Human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with excellence and if there is more than one excellence,
in conformity with the best and most complete.
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Every action and choice is thought to aim at some good therefore the good has been declared to be that at which all
things aim
Which causes growth and nutrition
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Vegetative does not share reason
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seems to be widely distributed and vegetative in its nature
Appetitive - the desiring element shares reason in a sense
Irrational soul: two main division:
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One element in the soul is irrational and one has a rational principle
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By human excellence we mean not that of the body but that of the soul - we call happiness and activity of
soul
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The excellence we study must be human excellence: the good we seek is human good and the happiness is human
happiness
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Intellectual: owes its birth and its growth to teaching for which reason it requires experience and time
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You cannot train a natural event to be different from what it is naturally
Ex. You can't train fire to move downwards
Nothing that exists in nature can form a habit contrary to its nature
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Neither by nature, nor contrary to nature do excellences arise in us; we are adapted to receive
them and are made perfect by habit
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None of the moral excellences arises in us by nature
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Excellences we first get by exercising them
Every excellence is both produced and destroyed
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Excellences: by doing acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become
just or unjust and by doing acts that we do in presence of danger and being
habituated to feel fear or confidence we become brave or cowardly
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Legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them
All of these things we acquire by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity
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This is why the activities that we exhibit must be of a certain kind
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States arise out of like activities
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Moral: come about as a result of habit
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Excellence is distinguished into kinds
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Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with complete excellence - we must consider the nature of excellence
Both excess and defect exercise destroy the strength
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The man who flies from and fears everything = coward
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The man who fears nothing at all and goes to meet every danger = rash
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Drink or food which is above or below certain amounts destroys the health, while which is proportionate
both produces and increases and preserves it
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Plato says that so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right
education
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As is the case in health and strength
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The nature of such things to be destroyed by defect or excess
We ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth
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Every action and passion is accompanied by pleasure and pain - therefore, excellence is also concerned with
pleasures and pains
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Excellence will also be concerned with pleasures and pains: it is on account of pleasure that we do bad things, and
on account of pain that we abstain from noble ones
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If excellences are concerned with actions and passions, and every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure
and pain
A man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge in that subject and therefore a good judge. A man who
receives an all-round education is a good judge in general.
Knowledge brings no profit, but those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle about matters will be of
great benefit.
They must have knowledge
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Must choose the acts
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Must choose them for their own sakes
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Actions are called just and temperate when they are such as the just or temperate man would do
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His action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character
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However to be just and temperate the agent must be in a certain condition when he does them
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By doing just acts the just man is produced and by doing temperate acts the temperate man is produced,
without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good
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What do we mean by saying that we must become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate acts - if
men do just and temperate acts they are already just and temperate
What is the highest of all goods achievable by action?: Happiness
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All knowledge and choice aims at something good
The man who has been well brought up has or can easily get starting-points towards moral virtue
What does Aristotle mean when he says that
justice only exists for people who live in
community?
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What is Aristotle's purpose in outlining the path
to a happy life? Is it strictly to show us how to
gain personal bliss?
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How does choice play a role in becoming a just
or unjust person?
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Questions:
Aristotle - Virtue and Happiness
May 28, 2018
10:20 AM
First Year Page 1
Document Summary
Every action and choice is thought to aim at some good therefore the good has been declared to be that at which all things aim. Like archers, we should have a mark to aim at, so we can more easily get to that aim. If there is an end for all we do, this will be the good achievable by action. Not all ends are complete ends however the chief good is evidently a complete end. If there is only one complete end then this is what we will be seeking for. If there is more than one, the most complete of these will be what we are seeking. Complete: always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. Happiness: a complete end since we choose happiness for itself not to achieve something else. We are seeking what is good peculiar to mankind.
